


from a father's point of view

by katotastic000



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: M/M, ishimondo - Freeform, takaaki is a good dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:14:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23682205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katotastic000/pseuds/katotastic000
Summary: The life of Kiyotaka Ishimaru as told through his father's eyes who overthinks and suffers and loves no one so dearly like his son.
Relationships: Ishimaru Kiyotaka/Oowada Mondo
Comments: 14
Kudos: 203





	1. tragedy

**Author's Note:**

> I felt that Takaaki Ishimaru needed some attention and I wanted to write something soft, so here it is. Since not much is really known about him (as far as I know), this entire fanfiction is just one big pile of headcanons. I hope you enjoy my take on his character!

Takaaki Ishimaru has changed.

As soon as he held his son in his arms for the first time, the realization hit: This tiny living, breathing thing is his legacy; the already piercing wails calling him, stumpy, uncoordinated fingers stretching out to him.

In this moment, all loose strings connected. Why he stood up in the morning, why he took pictures, why he collected newspaper clippings, why he remembered stories to tell, why he had a wife, why he worked and why he breathed. This, or rather _he_ was the reason. Takaaki held responsibility, he held life.

"Are you alright, sir?" The nurse's voice made his head snap up. He looked into the round face of a young woman and their eyes met. Her lips curved to a grin. "I see, I see, just amazed." She nodded along with her words. "And tired, understandable."

Takaaki felt his body all of a sudden, every muscle in his face, the bags under his eyes, the numb parts of his hand where his wife had grabbed on. For how long had he been awake?

"If you don't mind, sir, we'll take over from here." A "Thank you" escaped his lips as the weight in his arms was lifted. They stayed in position for a moment longer than necessary. Then he turned to look at his wife.

Sachiko was lying next to him. Her hair had been messy from the start (nine hours ago, about eleven p.m.), tied ineptly into a ponytail (by him by the way) that had opened during the last hours. But now it looked like a dog had played with a stork nest. Sweat had wet her hairline. Her face and neck glistened. She barely managed to keep her eyelids from falling but there was enough energy in her to faintly smile.

She was the best of all women. He said that out loud and Sachiko laughed, all despite everything.

That dream shattered six years after.

The first and last time Takaaki accepted a cigarette someone offered, he was watching the news. Sachiko had left the room. She had tried her best to hold it together, even asked if he or Kurusawa needed something out of the kitchen as this was where she stayed all night. But tears welled in the eyes of the best of all women while in the background her father Toranosuke unseated from the office of Prime Minister.

"What's going on inside you right now?" Kurusawa asked. He was somewhat a colleague to the now impeached Prime Minister, aware that he had basically lost his job and a close friend of the family. In this exact moment, the only friend. He blew the smoke from his own cigarette to the side.

Takaaki coughed out grey clouds. The smell burned in his nose. It was disgusting. Nothing compared to his thoughts.

Kiyotaka was seven months old. When did it all start? Six months ago. And also. This was Sachiko's father. He could leave. Toranosuke wasn't part of his family.

The second drag dried his throat. He swallowed a hard cough. "You wouldn't like to know."

Sachiko hated to come home. Even during her father's peak and their wealth, she had kept her job as a nurse. Just for fun. "It's still fun," she'd say.

Day by day, she arrived in their puny apartment in this godforsaken skid row and started to prepare their dinner. It was two p.m., she could have worked so much longer if it weren't for her little boy she picked up on her way home, and she prepared a bland dinner for the two because they were not able to afford warm meals twice a day and more spices than salt and pepper. Takaaki would join them much later, deep into the night.

Sachiko never told her husband what she would hear when she picked up their son. "He eats too little. He doesn't play with the others. He doesn't play in general. He's obedient. Like a little soldier. He cried again today. For a solid hour." Sachiko automatically translated every single word of the kindergarten teacher to "What are you doing to your poor son, Ishimaru?" She stretched her mouth to a smile, drilling into the other woman's face and into her own, took her son's hand and left.

"Don't you like coming home with me, Mother? Don't you love me anymore?" Of course, he had noticed how she slammed the pots onto the stove and in the sink, how her fist clenched around the handrails on the train. "I'm your mother, silly." She knelt down to him and put her hands on his shoulders. Her knees creaked. Kiyotaka's eyes shot down to them, then up. Fire met ember. "That means I'll always love you, no matter what you do or where you are. Got that?" He nodded silently. A corner of Sachiko's mouth twitched up, not because of happiness. She hugged her son, he hugged her back, pulling at her shirt and squeezing her shoulders. The pain on Sachiko's spine grew and she had to let go.

A few years later on a June afternoon, Takaaki was called back to the station while he was on patrol. "A call for you, Ishimaru." Usually, all policemen handled him rough like an old belt they wore during some dirty work since it would break anyway in a while. Today, one of them said, "I'm sorry" before handing him the sticky receiver. Its color was faded under Takaaki's bony fingers.

The nurse on the other side of the line had hung up a minute ago. The receiver dangled from its cable, scraping the ground with each sway. The scratching, the whirring of the ceiling fan, the disconnect tone, the officer's voice crawled closer out of the background Takaaki had banished them to. Reality encircled him, wolves surrounding their prey.

Without explanation, he ripped his son out of class and rushed to the hospital Sachiko had been working at. Kiyotaka's fellow classmates, all train passengers gaped at him with their round childrens' eyes or their judging whispers. They pierced the man who looked tired, out of breath and the boy at his hand who pulled and screamed at him to finally tell him what was going on.

Kiyotaka was silent as he stared down at his dead mother. Bones shone through her death pale skin, sticks wrapped in wax, hair dull and strawy, glazed eyes drying out in the uncomfortably warm room.

When Takaaki's son was six years and ten months old, he attended his first funeral. "Mother said that she'll always love us no matter where we are," he whispered down the grave. "She said that." Takaaki's brain was too drained to answer. "She said that, didn't she?" He didn't know. A weary smile dragged onto his lips because he felt Kiyotaka's eyes on his. That smile would later become the only one he knew. "She did."

An actual laugh awakes inside of Takaaki when he hears his son starting to recite his vows for the third time.


	2. friends

For years, Takaaki Ishimaru has thought that he is a terrible father.

Ever since that day in June, both he and his son had been working without an end to forsee. Escapism. They both despised that word. Kiyotaka hated the idea behind it and pitied everyone who lived on the run from their reality. Takaaki turned his head in shame. "You feel that way because you're strong, son." His brain added "And I'm not" to the sentence yet did not dare to turn it into sounds. Not in front of him. _That's because I failed._

Takaaki had failed as a husband. After his fall, Toranosuke refused to speak. His only form of communication was a nod or nothing. All decision went by him, a passenger looking out the train window, flowing in the race of time. Takaaki had tried for the first few weeks, then he was too tired to talk. Sachiko was always speaking every day, in hopeful expectance of an answer. Maybe that was what kept her father alive all these years after his fall, that Sachiko was still waiting for an answer. He lived, died and stayed dead in silence. They mourned him in silence. All of them knew that Death had rid them of their greatest burden.

And of all things, he had failed as a father.

Takaaki was more than certain that his son's entire demeanor stemmed from his upbringing. The things he was truly interested in could be counted on one hand: practicing kendo, doing all the housework his father had never learned to do and studying. Studying as in working until complete exhaustion, as in burying his head in books and never talking, as in staying in school for as long as possible. All the stories his son had heard pressed him into his mentality, a raw stone pressured into a more practical square shape.

Yet, there was nothing more valuable to his son than his relationship with his father, or any relationship really. Every evening they sat together, eating their frugal dinner, he begged Takaaki to tell him everything about his day. He listened to his boring tales of paperwork, red eyes reflecting the last rays of the sunset because they could not afford to turn on the lights. Takaaki would never stop missing her.

Aside from each other, both of them never had people they could truly trust. Kurusawa had been one of them until lung cancer took him away. It was rather predictable but standing at his grave, Takaaki's brain forced alternatives on him, feeding on the last of the energy he had in his body. Kurusawa had such a similar fate. _This could be me_ , he thought and shuddered. For once, Takaaki didn't regret. Though in these moments, he thought of himself as rude and sometimes a thing in him plead to take one, he had made the right decision to never accept a cigarette from Kurusawa. _This could be me_ , again, _and he would be all alone_.

He was alone nonetheless, Takaaki realized on the day that someone decided to call themself his son's friend. "Father, I've made a friend!" his son exclaimed as soon as he closed the door behind him and had neatly placed his bright-yellow grade schooler's hat on the coat rack. For a second, Takaaki's face lit up. All the frustration of work and the remorse that he had to leave his son in school for longer again, all melted in Kiyotaka's eyes, bright and aflame. "You did?"

The next day, when Kiyotaka returned home, Takaaki saw the grime on his face, the bruises on his arms, the dirt between his teeth as he spoke, "Do you remember my friend, Father?" As he hung up his hat, Takaaki noticed a long rip on one side of the now dirty fabric. "Please forget about him."

"I've made a friend." Takaaki stopped in the middle of chewing his dinner and stared. Nine years since then. His son had grown. Obviously. From a child surrounded by misfortune for which he never was to blame to an Ultimate, attending the most prestigious school in the nation, probably in the entire world. This was the first time he came home in two years, the promise to return was finally fulfilled.

"I don't think you will be happy with what I will tell you." With a sigh, Takaaki closed his eyes, bracing for the impact. "Mondo and I have been friends for over a year now." Not him. Had he failed at that, too? "It is a heartfelt relationship, nothing like that time in third grade."

He massaged the bridge of his nose before lifting his head to meet his son's eyes. "I assume you are aware of your actions." "I very much am, father." Their voices had flattened to a monotonous rigidity, dry and sober. "I made the same mistake as you at first." "Then convince me."

The fire blazed out of his mouth as he spoke. He leaned on the table, unintentionally lifting himself up from his seat as he put his soul into words. There was no stopping him, Takaaki soon came to notice. Thus, he just sat and listened.

Mondo Owada was as much of a full-fleshed criminal as he was a decent citizen. In Takaaki's eyes, he was just a young man led in the wrong direction but his hatred (yes, that word was accurate) stemmed from the fact that he never showed any motivation to change. Takaaki had worked on countless documents regarding his and his gang's behavior. Vandalism, disturbance of the peace, theft, speeding, rather small things. That didn't make them less bothersome. Takaaki had been the one to fill out his papers for the detention center and that was the first time they met. With Takaaki's nod for a greeting and Mondo scoffing as he was escorted to his cell, they both had agreed on mutual disliking.

And now, his son was burning with a passion for that boy. Takaaki's brain kept cold behind a face carved deep. He bit his tongue while thinking of a way to pull his son out of the mess that boy had dragged him into. "Think of your future" was what he planned on saying after his son had finished. And with his fist slamming on the table, Kiyotaka's speech came to an end, "I have no worries for my plans of becoming Prime Minister! No matter what, I won't feel shame for him! I will not be ashamed for the man who I value the most in my life and to whom I vowed support with all my heart as I know he does the same for me!"

Kiyotaka was frozen in his position of standing up, fist clenched, and teeth gritted. He huffed, his chest visibly rising and falling. Takaaki was certain that the neighbors must have heard him. His mouth had fallen open and his brain had retreated speechless. The man that his son had been talking about, could it really be him? "That is everything for now." Kiyotaka sat down. Takaaki's gaze rested in the place where he had stood. Maybe, just maybe, he thought, it was his turn to change.

"You will do fine," he tells his son as they share a hug. "Thank you, father." They part. Takaaki's hand still rests on his shoulder. "Shall we go?"


	3. trust

Takaaki Ishimaru has never been sure that he knows his son.

For Takaaki, his son's career in Hope's Peak and college differed in the amount of calls he received. In the Academy, there first was not a single one although his son owned a cellphone from hard-earned and honest money by then. Later, a few of the span of half a year. His son worked concentrated and Takaaki respected that. Then starting college, a few in months, then one every four weeks. The only logical conclusion Takaaki arrived at, in the assumption that his son had not changed his working behavior suddenly, was that someone was reminding him.

This month's call came way too early yet considerately in the late evening when Takaaki was long back from work. He missed it, he kept his phone muted, and called back with sweaty hands. After the greeting his son had rehearsed as soon as he knew what phones were, he asked, "Father, can I ask for advice?" "Of course, go ahead." As someone in need of advice since years, his "assuring voice" was dry and stiff. "Am I bothering you?" Takaaki converted his surprise into a brief smile. His son usually had trouble catching someone's tone and expression. "No, not at all. Please continue." Takaaki heard his son ex- and inhale slowly. "What is it like to be attracted to someone?"

Takaaki jumped up from the shabby and dented couch. He always hated that old thing, but it had been cheap and today, its springs were uncharacteristically bouncy. His widened eyes rushed over to the picture on the TV stand. It was taken by Sachiko's parents when they had dragged him into and through "family vacation", a term that basically meant "bragging" in Sachiko's then wealthy family. Despite their circumstances, they both smiled. Sachiko had an arm around Takaaki's waist which made him blush rather visibly. _Our son is in love_ , he wanted to whisper but Sachiko probably knew that already. Stifling a sigh, Takaaki fell back on the couch.

"Hello? Hello?" he heard his son repeat as he put the phone on his ear again. "I'm here. Now tell me, who is she?" His son was the one to stay silent this time. His nails were scraping against the phone as he switched hands, Takaaki concluded. "That is also something I wanted to talk to you about."

Kiyotaka sniffled while Takaaki waited for something to follow that sentence. His shaky breath hissed on the other end of the line. Takaaki shifted in his seat, he could not feel the springs underneath him anymore. "If the attraction I feel is genuine," his son finally spoke up. Takaaki's muscles tensed as Kiyotaka held his breath, then let out a quivering exhale. "I'm homosexual." Both Ishimaru men let go.

Now that it was said and there, Takaaki was forced to admit that deep down inside, there had been luring something for a while that now came to light. That was the question "What if?" Kiyotaka had been talking about him so vividly, so lively and lovingly that Takaaki sometimes asked in quiet if he had not met some imposter in prison.

The extraordinarity of the stories about their friendship was the amount of them. In every phone call, at least once, "Mondo", "Kyoudai", close to the edge of obsession. Kiyotaka seemed happy with his friend, for once in his life he was truly satisfied. Takaaki hated to doubt him, but... what if?

To replace the tender, quick-witted and imaginary woman beside his son with an impulsive chunk of a man took effort and failed too many times to count. It was not disgust that led Takaaki astray. It was never disgust for neither of the two, it was always disgust for the fathers who were disgusted by their sons.

In fact, it was nothing. Takaaki was not capable of imagining anything. In his mind, there were words – they "hold hands" and "hug" and "kiss" and his son fondly calls this ruffian "my dear" – hanging in the air like empty clouds. There were never pictures behind them, just letters that he remembered from his wife. He could think of them coming over for Christmas, gatherings, birthdays and whatnot, he could think of them leaning on the balcony railing or sitting at the dinner table, chatting and laughing, but he never saw them. Nothing like them existed in his memory and he was ashamed that this came from a once married man.

Takaaki struggled to sit back up and lift his hand with the phone in it. Even from afar, he heard his son's sobs sloshing out of it, wave after wave. "Let's talk." His son agreed in a watery hum. "Tell me what you are upset about." "My career," he replied, involuntarily sucking in air in between the syllables. "It complicates my initial situation, it's something that I can't control. I can't change it."

Takaaki sighed and shook his head. He wondered if he would feel more comfortable if his son stood in front of him now. He came to no conclusion. "Are you saying that you're giving up?" The unfatherly thought of raising his voice crossed his mind, he scratched it. Not now though disappointment stuffed his throat.

Apart from the occasional sniffling and gurgling, there was silence on the other end. "Are you letting all your efforts go to waste without trying?" His emotions blurted out, "Are you–," but he caught himself and continued. "erasing your intelligence, your strength, your ambitions? What happened to you who once said that you will never be ashamed of him?"

Unwanted satisfaction took root inside Takaaki as he heard the complete noiselessness on his son's end of the line. He was satisfied that he had broken down this foolish wall but disliked what means he had used. His son was rarely silent, it was odd. Takaaki checked if he had hung up, that was of course not the case. He got up while suppressing a groan and grabbed the picture frame off the TV stand.

Kiyotaka was monologuing as Takaaki traced his fingertips over the photo and listened. Barely to his words but to his voice, he kept stumbling, falling and repeating anyway. He let him speak. "What have I done, Father? How could I... say something like that? How did I never think of this? It's... I'm... I am..."

"Talk to him." This was the first time he felt like an actual father since he had picked up the call. He wished that he could clap his son's back and crack a friendly smile. "Huh? I can't just– confess out of the blue... can I?" Now he'd laugh at his innocent stuttering and ruffle his hair. "That is not what I mean. Talk about him." He refrained from adding the remark that Kiyotaka was already excelling in that. "He's your friend. Reassure yourself of that."

"You... know who I'm talking about? You accept him?", his son asked, breathy with disbelief. "Well, what am I supposed to do?" The only thing that could make a change would be an arrest but one, as far as Takaaki knew, the Ultimate Biker Gang Leader was now a lawful carpenter's apprentice and two, it would be an immoral decision to take away what made his dear son happy. They were both happy and young, two things that Takaaki had missed in his life until he arrived at the point where it was too late and all lost. He had only done that for his son so that he might not miss it in his turn. That had not been the right decision but Takaaki had the chance to make one now.

"You won't regret it, father." His mouth twitched to a smile. "I'll trust you on that." He hung up.

"Stop fumbling with your jacket." His son lets his hands fall and glances up to him guiltily. He catches his eyes. "There is no way of failing this, trust me." The red-hot blush on his son's face melts his lips into a smile. Takaaki offers his arm, he takes it and they start walking.


	4. achievements

Takaaki Ishimaru wasn't sure what love meant.

It was unpleasantly cold and loud on the narrow balcony of Takaaki's apartment. Children were playing down in the courtyard as their mother tried to call them back in fruitlessly. Somewhere in the apartment complex, two dogs were arguing though the echo bouncing of the walls made it seem like two legions. The high buildings blocked off the sun. Mondo, who had called him out here, shivered and rubbed his upper arm.

"You wanted to speak to me," Takaaki initiated the conversation. "Yeah!" a tad too loud, Takaaki had already noticed that habit. "Yeah, I did." "Then speak." He looked at the younger man who ran his fingers through his hair. "Okay, yeah. It's about Taka," Mondo said, not returning the eye contact. Takaaki's silence grew uncomfortable and prompted him to continue, "It's... I..." He breathed in, wrapped his hands around the icy railing and breathed out. "When it's possible," Mondo lowered his head and swallowed. "I wanna ask him to marry me. I mean, if that's okay with you, that's why I'm asking, I thought that would be a thing people do."

Takaaki stared at him. Some strands of hair fell in front of Mondo's face. He let them hide it. _When it's possible..._ It echoed in his head over and over again. "When" had also been a variable in Takaaki's marriage. He was never perceived as perfect by Sachiko's parents, but that applied to their daughter as well.

Despite having money for three lives on her bank account, Sachiko was a nurse. And that was how they had met. Takaaki had been young, ambitious and somewhat stupid. Just put on duty, the new-fledged police officer burned a little too much with the fire of justice. And, as par for the course, he got himself into a bar fight on his second night shift and took some hits in the attempt to dissolve it. He ended up in a hospital room with Sachiko who gently fixed up his face. Although Takaaki melted in her soft hands, he cursed himself for his idiotic behavior that a, he had not waited for his partner to join him and rushed in the fight after leaving his brain in the car and b, he had just asked a woman he had met two minutes ago if she had time to grab a coffee with him at two in the morning. Sachiko laughed as an answer and after she was finished, she stuffed a note in his breast pocket. On it was her number but Takaaki had forgotten to ask her name.

Their first date went... well, in retrospect, averagely, in that moment, perfectly and was an absolute train wreck at the same time. Sachiko was the one who took over all the talking and "Thank God for that" was one of the sentences that made their rounds in Takaaki's head. "Pull yourself together!" was the other one. Constantly, he stumbled over his words and glanced over Sachiko's shoulder, but she just cocked her head to catch his eyes and said, "I totally get what you're saying!" After some hours, Takaaki scrambled out his few bucks to pay their check when he noticed that Sachiko had already paid and tipped for both of them. "Same time, next week?" she asked. "Yes.. yes, gladly," Takaaki pressed out of his hanging mouth. Sachiko grinned oh so sweetly and left.

A few dates and years later, Takaaki was shifting uncomfortably in his seat in Sachiko's father's office. This was the third attempt. Takaaki dismissed the returning thought of eloping once again. Toranosuke had made him very aware of who he was on multiple occasions: nothing but a forgettable police officer who was, according to Toranosuke, more in need of money than a wife. On this particular occasion, Takaaki answered, "I need money, that is true but that is why I work. I have plenty to help myself. What I need is someone with whom I can share all other things." Toranosuke considered, letting his fingers tap against each other a few times. Then he nodded. "Congratulations, you passed." If it weren't for this overwhelming relief, Takaaki would have punched him. Instead, he firmly grabbed his hand for a simple handshake.

He and Sachiko had to fight for their "when." His son and Mondo would have to do the same but in a sense that Takaaki was not capable of imagining.

He turned to Mondo who was wringing his hands. Takaaki looked at him, observed him, saw how uncomfortable that made him and realized that he would always see but never understand. He did not know what his son saw when looking at him, what he saw in him.

What Takaaki did know was that this was the man who was loved by his son and who loved him as well. This man wished to wear this love on his ring finger with pride where all would see it. He wished to promise his son to stay with him, care for him and fight alongside him because every couple has some fighting to do regardless of who they are. The reason why would forever be a mystery for Takaaki, and he wondered if Sachiko ever had a reason to love him.

"You have my permission." Mondo's eyes widened and his head whirled around to him. Blush had risen to his cheeks. He blurted out, "Seriously?" Takaaki pressed his lips together to avoid a smile. The boy hadn't grown up much in regard to awkwardness. "Seriously," Takaaki answered with a nod. "You didn't even need to ask." He shrugged indifferently. "I'm sure even if I would have not allowed it, you would have done it anyway."

Mondo replied in just the same slightly snarky tone, "I would have _not_! I would've gotten my head ripped off if Taka just stormed through your door with a brand-new ring on his finger, that's what!" Swallowing a sigh, Takaaki raised and then furrowed his brows. Mondo's disgruntled expression relaxed involuntarily. "If you're going to become my son-in-law, our relationship should not consist of decapitating each other." Upon seeing that Mondo clenched his teeth and he glanced away, Takaaki decided to soften his demeanor, "I wouldn't be angry with you. Asking a father for his child's hand in marriage _is_ an old-fashioned thing to do."

"Taka prolly would wanna know if I got your blessing first," Mondo said after a while of silence. "And then I'd have to run to you to get that blessing and then back to Taka to ask again which would be real awkward" "Yes, that sounds plausible." Takaaki snickered and in the corner of his eye, Mondo's jaw dropped a little.

"So? Anything else?" Their eyes met and Mondo closed his mouth. His eyes shifted either in thought or in an attempt to dodge Takaaki. "No, don't think so." Takaaki nodded. He didn't want to fill that moment of awkward silence. Mondo straightened up and pointed over his shoulder. "Then... I'm gonna go back inside." "Sure," Takaaki answered without turning back. A pause of hesitation and the following footsteps indicated that Mondo was gone.

A smile spread over Takaaki's face in satisfaction. One, Mondo seemed to be awed by him, something he had lacked when he had been younger. It was yet to be the right kind of awe, similar to respect, but they had plenty of time to work on that. Second, he finally got to experience the ever so clumsy question for the blessing from the other perspective. Third, his son was – with high chances – getting married. To someone he loved and who loved him. To someone with the ability to evolve from an aimless, disrespectful delinquent to a true man; an ability for the lack of which Takaaki had despised him.

Takaaki turned around to look inside. Mondo had joined his son in the kitchen. From Kiyotaka's expression, Takaaki guessed that he was complaining that Mondo, who had his arm wrapped around him, was distracting him in his tea-making. Mondo nuzzled against his neck as Kiyotaka wriggled free and continued. He couldn't help a smile.

The following years, Takaaki saw his son fighting on television, in the newspapers, on the radio. All the things that had sucked the life out of his name were now fueling his heartbeats. The debate was heated but his son was sure as hell used to fire. Kiyotaka had achieved what he had aimed for. He was a politician, an odd one surely, he had cried on national TV once, but a supported one nonetheless. And he would not let anyone hinder him in his next achievement: an overdue change in this dated country that would finally grant him and so many others their rightful marriage certificate.

It was actually Mondo who called to say, "I don't know if you heard it already, but we did it." Takaaki could hear a mixture of laughter and sobbing in the background which he identified as his son. A distant and smudgy, "Can I talk to him? I want to tell him." Mondo chuckled but the sniffing afterwards was a clear sign that he was crying as well. Takaaki surely would have shed a tear too yet his soul was at peace now. Happiness filled him, a sense of calmness and he could safely say that he was alright.

"Father?" Takaaki smiled at his barely comprehensible voice. "My son." "Father, I'm going to get married. I'm wearing a ring, father, I'm getting married." Takaaki's vision blurred as tears welled up in his eyes. "You are."

Now they're standing here. Takaaki wants to say something but nothing comes to mind. He considers himself lucky that Kiyotaka and Mondo appear to feel the same. They're just looking at each other, not at their fine suit and hakama, not at their guests, just into each other's eyes as if nothing as meaningful existed around them.

The young man next to Mondo tilts his head away from them. Takaaki nods.


End file.
